JAPANESE Filipino telecom firm InfiniVAN and the Aurora Pacific Zone and Freeport Authority (Apeco) signed on Friday an agreement to explore the establishment of a terrestrial (overland) digital connection inside Apeco in Casiguran, Aurora, to be linked to a future submarine cable.
The soon-to-be landed international submarine cable will connect Baler, Aurora, with the subsea cable capacities in Claveria, Cagayan, to provide faster internet connection.
“Through this partnership, we aim to establish digital infrastructure, including a cable landing station within Apeco and the backhauling of international submarine cable capacities from Baler and Claveria in Cagayan into the ecozone,” Apeco President and CEO Gil Taway IV said during the signing ceremony in Makati.
InfiniVAN advisor Alejandro Aquino said the best way to connect the Apeco ecozone is through a terrestrial connection, which, however, entails a higher cost.
“Overland, because we’re following the national road. Preferably underground. It’s cheaper if we just install an electric utility there. But that area will be flooded. Fiber optic is glass. If the post falls, your internet is dead. So, we prefer to do it underground,” Aquino told reporters at the sidelines of the signing ceremony.
Aquino said the underground fiber system will cost up to P4.5 million per kilometer.
InfiniVAN, with almost a decade of operations in the Philippine broadband industry, claims it has the third largest lit upstream capacity with a capacity of 20+ terabytes per second distributed across 10 international submarine cable systems.
Apeco is positioning itself as an emerging gateway to the Pacific, leveraging its strategic location and ongoing infrastructure developments to attract investments.